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A Winter Bird Resort 



The writer as an incident of his vaca- 

 tion, spent a considerable part of the past 

 winter in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and 

 while there made it a practice to land fre- 

 quently to observe the manifold bird life 

 of the region. Originally expecting to see 

 only native Cuban birds, my delight may 

 be imagined when on the very first excur- 

 sion into the thorny tropical jungles I began 

 to see familiar faces and feathers and rea- 

 lized that I had found the winter quarters 

 of some of our well-known North American 

 birds. 



The first home bird that I saw, the iden- 

 tification of which was complete and led 

 me to look for other friends from home, 

 was an Oven Bird. I saw this bird, or at least 

 an Oven Bird, on several subsequent 

 occasions always in the same locality and 

 always busily walking about the ground 

 picking up the morning meal. My favorite 

 landing place, on Caracoles Point, is unin- 

 habited; there is no shooting there, and 

 the birds are consequently remarkably 

 indifferent to men as well as remarkably 

 numerous. I could walk up so close to 

 the Oven Bird without alarming it that 

 my field-glasses were of no use, and my 

 experience was the same with many other 

 species, both Cuban and North American. 



Warblers were very numerous, and I 

 identified other of our birds whose plum- 

 age or characteristics are unmistakable, 

 even to an amateur, such as the Black and 

 White Warbler, the Black-throated Blue 

 Warbler (both male and female), the 

 Tennessee Warbler, the Redstart, the 

 Phcebe, and the little Blue-gray Gnat- 

 catcher. The latter was especially numer- 

 ous, and properly so, for there are certainly 

 gnats enough for them in those briery 

 Cuban thickets. The sweet little song of 

 this Gnatcatcher is about all the bird 

 music one hears in this season and region, 

 the other birds that I have mentioned being 

 silent except for a short chip or cheep that 

 seems to be a sort of hunting cry with 



them. Mockingbirds and Brown Pelicans 

 are very plentiful, but I believe they are 

 on their native heath in these West India 

 Islands. 



I had it in mind to observe the North 

 American birds closely as spring ap- 

 proached in order to fix the dates of their 

 departure on the northern migration, 

 but naval duty prevented. The middle of 

 March the whole fleet sailed from Guanta- 

 namo Bay to conduct the annual record 

 target practice, and I had to say farewell 

 to my birds, leaving them in their winter 

 homes. 



It is difficult to close these notes with- 

 out mentioning some of the beautiful and 

 very numerous Cuban birds of land, sea 

 and shore that one sees about this region. 

 Some of these, as the Tody, a lovely little 

 bright green bird with a red throat, a 

 gorgeous Woodpecker, a brilliantly marked 

 Trogon, and black Orioles with golden 

 trimmings, are so strikingly handsome 

 that it is to be regretted they do not live 

 in the United States where more people 

 might see them. There are Humming- 

 birds of several species, various Herons 

 and a curious black bird with a parrot-like 

 beak that I take to be the Ani. The big 

 Mangrove Cuckoo is often seen, and an- 

 other and much larger species of Cuckoo 

 (Saurothera) is even more numerous. This 

 latter is a rich brown- or bronze-colored 

 bird with a remarkably silent and stealthy 

 manner of moving about in the tree tops, 

 scarcely moving the leaves, and their 

 flight is owl-like and gloomy without a 

 sound. A more uncanny object I have 

 never seen in feathers. — F. M. Bennett, 

 U. S. N. 



Sea Birds and Whalers 



Last summer, while on board the whal- 

 ing steamers which "fish" along the west 

 coast of Vancouver Island,' I saw an inter- 

 esting way in which sea birds make them- 

 selves of considerable use to the sailors. 

 The whales feed on a small shrimp about 



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